Faces and Places

– Editor’s note: Mr. Evans is taking a well-deserved break this week. Due to reader response, we are reprinting this Remember When column, which was originally published in the July 26, 2009, edition of The Lancaster News. It is especially timely with the Lancaster County Fair opening Tuesday.

They called it a carnival. For me, it was more or less a county fair wannabe.

This small outfit popped into town during the lull of my summer vacation.

Homer and Brenda Harmon of Great Falls were in Rock Hill when they decided to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“We went in to eat, but we didn’t get to,” Homer said.

That’s because Homer was outfitted in white pants, a white jacket with a black handkerchief tucked inside and a white shirt with his colonel’s “signature” string tie. He wore framed glasses and carried a walking cane.

Within the next couple of months, Robert Truesdale’s “office” will be empty.

That office is the seed counter in Ace Hardware and Garden Center of Lancaster, where Truesdale has weighed out seed of every kind and shape in the last 54 years. Truesdale, now a part time “feed and seed store” employee, will soon weigh out his last bag for one of the farmers who stop by to trade hearty stories and conversation.